Be curious, be kind, be stoic, find your people, never tire of learning, growing, and searching for meaning and fulfillment in your daily life, love someone who deserves your love and who will love you back, manage your risk from a place of logic and rationality, understand that the meaning of life is to experience, and finally, when all else fails and malicious or unkind people have engaged you, be prepared to win (out of self preservation, not vanity nor pride). Apologize for genuine mistakes and harm, but you must do better for the apology to be sincere. When able and if it brings you joy, plant trees whose shade you will never sit in. Give humans the opportunity to surprise you, but don’t be surprised if and when they let you down. Through your struggle, understand the struggle of others. Show grace when you can, empathy is not weakness. Your reputation will be your most valuable asset, treat it with the care it deserves. If you choose to develop strength, influence, and power, use it to help and protect those in need and deserving of such support, the reward is knowing others lived an easier or better life because of you.
Most of life is luck, be prepared when opportunity presents itself, life is not fair, do not expect or operate as if it is, sometimes we love the wrong people, sometimes we trust the wrong people, our existence is brief and mostly inconsequential on geological and cosmic time scales, do no harm but take no shit, when you are short on hope, rest to persevere, but don't quit, ask for help when you need to from those you trust.
It's absolutely wonderful.
Could you elaborate more on what you see that is specific to raising kids?
Thanks in any case.
Our children are special needs, a combination of adhd and autistic, but highly functional (like their parents). Private/pod, secular schooling, one parent stay at home, as public school systems where we have lived are not equipped for their needs nor their velocity and ability. "Custom Montessori" if you will. All of the data indicates "nature > nurture." They are who they are, it is (in our opinion) our role|job|obligation to expose them to as much novelty and new experiences as possible, while ensuring their basic educational requirement needs are met and their safety is assured to the best of our ability. We support their artistic endeavors, water colors, music, etc (one of my children enjoys creating music, so I bought them an Audima Labs Sway and setup them up with a DJ station https://audima.com.au/ [no affiliation], and they share the music they create with friends and family). We support their love of nature, learning how to identify flora and fauna, and taking them to national parks and similar geographic locations. We love them unconditionally, as they are, and as they wish to grow into adults. As someone else mentioned, spend time with them, this is crucial not just for socialization, but to demonstrate to your children you love them. Love them, they will know if you don't.
Fundamentally, they are explorers, we are their knowledge base for facts, data, observations, as well as our opinions (with attributes around context, accuracy, theta decay, and potential gaps explicitly discussed with regards to those opinions; our opinions are potentially wrong, consume and internalize accordingly) from lived experiences, a long term ongoing Socratic method exercise between mentor teachers and students, and the Feynman Technique for specific domains and subjects; I will teach them, they will then teach back to me to validate understanding and grasp, "I know kung fu." "Show me."
They do not need to be economically successful because I have been economically successful, but they do not know that yet. They will have enough to do any job, but not enough to do nothing. My desire and intent is for them to optimize for being scholars of their human experience, as learners, explorers, scientists attempting to understand the world in which they will exist in, testing theories, and updating their priors and mental model continuously. I hope that they make an effort to find meaning and purpose, this is a core component of the human experience, there is no shortcut in this regard but I cannot force them to do so, they have to want to. I also want them to understand and assert their boundaries in relationships, protect themselves from harm, and love and be loved. My partner and I model a healthy relationship so, hopefully, our children understand what to accept and reject from future platonic or romantic partners when they are adults.
As I've mentioned previously in another comment, this is my gift to them for their existence they did not consent to in a world that even I find taxing to exist and operate in, it is the least I can do as their parent and guardian. My comment you replied to is my coarse mental model from lived experience I am slowly teaching my children via osmosis.
If you would like, I'm happy to reach out via email to discuss further, let me know if I have your permission to do so.
A resource that might be helpful I recently discovered:
Erdemli A, Audrin C, Sander D. An Integrative Appraisal Model of Epistemic Curiosity. Affect Sci. 2025 Nov 13;6(4):714-725. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-025-00328-7 PMID: 41694073; PMCID: PMC12894534.
Have you ever heard of Gordon Training, by chance? [0]
[0]: https://www.gordontraining.com/
Also, on this:
> They do not need to be economically successful because I have been economically successful, but they do not know that yet.
I think I understand your point, in that they have the freedom to choose whether they want to be economically successful or not. Correct? If they want to, you are going to let them. I think it's very hard, though, to make sure that your money does not prevent them from being successful in their own way. Lots of discussions with a few friends about this particular aspect.
And, for context: my son is ~2 years old. I feel I want to study/learn/be better now that it still matters a lot.
Feel free to hit me on email (in my HN profile) if you'd like to keep chatting about this. Or just to say hello! :)
If you don't enjoy spending time with them, other people won't either.
Too many people are on a quest to either a) raise the most successful human possible or b) make parenting easy and commitment free. If you try either you'll end up with a whole lot of neither.
My daughter is now 200 miles away and probably could hear me swearing. Anger is a bad example for kids.
I'll try to remember what I typed. Great question, and great replies.
CIAO!
Love and trust. Set wide boundaries. Be an example, Live what you say. Kids pick up on hypocrisy immediately.
Protect and teach discernment, protecting oneself against harm (some martial arts, especially for girls) while understanding trust, and who earns it. We deal with this every day. Not easy. Above all be trustful yourself --- something very complex and deserving of a long examination (some other time). At least, kids will have a good standard of comparison.
Be a calm, tolerant and understanding person. I refer to the 4 great Buddhist virtues:[0] Loving Kindness (acceptance), compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity, (the no anger part, except for righteous indignation against injustice)
Share activities. Kids may pick up on one or more, or not! Give them the chance. Naturally I am a techie, but Mom and Dad hadn't a clue. But Mom taught me cooking (Italian, of course) and introduced me to radical literature (Walden!). Dad was an artist, which I never pursued (clean brushes? Nope!) but as soon as Mom bought my brother and myself little cameras on a Christmas sale, I went to town with photography.
Dad was also a musician, and loved music. So did Mom, and I grew up with the classics and the BSO on the FM dial. I have paid that forward to my daughter. At the very least, let kids hear the classics. They may never hear them in the cacophony of life. Soul food. Perhaps kids ignore it, but I have never heard of on regretting the hearing. (Somewhat by contrast, the movie based on real-life, "Shine", about a controlling Dad. But after some agonizing times, David Helfgott returned to music in a loving and sharing way.) [1]
Put yourself in their shoes! You were young once. Grab old photos and think of what parents did for you, perhaps clearer in retrospect. If there were bad memories, get help so you don't pass them along. New life means new life, not just for your kids, but for you. My life took on vast new meaning when I became a Dad.
Travel some. My Dad traveled little, but I remember one beach trip, where he found and bought a purple cow creamer, WAY before Seth Godin. I still have it, one of the few mementos I hang onto. Little things can spark wonderful memories, not only of events, but your unique personality. Who would think to buy it? An artist? Likely so.
Grow WITH them. I saved this great piece on a teacher learning along with students. [2]
Be excited about things. Pre-internet, I vividly recall getting my daughter "Gizmos and Gadgets" [3] which now runs in emulation (I forgot how at this moment)
She didn't turn out to be a scientist, but it was great fun.
[0] https://www.learnreligions.com/brahma-vihara-the-four-divine...
[1] http://www.davidhelfgott.com/
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49333385 https://archive.is/KXIYN
[3] https://archive.org/details/SSGWINCD
You have my email address.